


I would have loved you (all my life)

by myymelancholy (Loveless09)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: All characters' POV, F/F, First. Fanfiction. Ever, Lots of drama because Root and because I'm a bad person, Torture Flashbacks, english is not my first language, please be kind!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loveless09/pseuds/myymelancholy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place six days after the season 4 finale.<br/>Because Claire stole Finch's laptop, as soon as he, Reese and Root saved what's left of the Machine and came back to The Subway, the man decided that's finally time to take things seriously. He hacks his own stolen laptop, uploading a series of worms and sleeping viruses that are only waiting for whoever is trying to hack his datas to have success (with a little help). Two days later, his (infected) datas got sent to Samaritan and therefore he has now access to one Samaritan's backdoor through which he's able to acquire very relevant and important informations such as its imminent plans. Now not only he and his partners have to figure out how to recreate the Machine but also how to intercept and stop Samaritan's plans without being caught. Things become even more complicated once they find out where's been Shaw all this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. YHDH

Have you ever noticed how easier it becomes to let your tears run down your face when it's raining and you're carrying no umbrella with you? How all your sorrow and pain and nostalgia just come back to you in few, significant instants? It only takes the time for your eyes to lock with the cloudy sky and everything around you just seems to disappear. And in a moment you're re-living the past few days, weeks, months. You're feeling what you've felt when that one awful event happened once again, you're seeing it right in front of your eyes and you can do nothing but cry. While the time moves fast for everyone else, you feel like it's slowing down week by week, month by month. And you can't tell why, exactly, you can't properly explain it either to yourself, but you know it's related to that one person that you're oh so badly missing. You know it's related to that one piece of your heart that's no longer there, the same piece you never thought to have in the first place. Has it always been there, waiting for someone to claim it? Or has it generated only after you and that one person actually bonded? How long can one's heart keep wandering, holding out hope until reality crushes it mercilessly? Will it ever find true peace, eventually?  
  
It's been a while since Root spent her time waiting for instructions doing or _thinking_ about absolutely nothing. It's been a while since she felt truly at ease, light headed, relaxed. Surely Samaritan, Decima, and also Vigilance, before they got all killed by the same person that created them, were also the reasons why she'd been feeling like this, lately. Being constantly watched, having to constantly hide, having to have your guard on, always, not only makes you become a true paranoid but also makes your life become kind of miserable. Not that Root could actually complain, she had always known that survival was the priority since the start and, right now? After having been on the line of fire of only Samaritan knows how many agents? Being still breathing felt pretty good to her. However, there was another thing that had been bothering her for a while. Rather than bothering; haunting. Like a voice in your head that keeps telling you what you should do, what you should _be_ doing rather than whatever else you're actually doing. Like waiting for instructions outside a fifteen-story hotel, under the rain in the middle of New York. And the craziest thing is that it wasn't the Machine. Whispering in her ears, constantly telling her what she was so desperately trying to ignore. That heavy heart she was carrying around since she had, once and for all, got the proof that Shaw was alive.   
  
The guilt, the remorse for not being out there, searching for her. For having given up on her at the first dead end after months of searching and haunting and killing, holding out an invisible and distant hope. Now, after nine, long months she had called them, she was very much actually alive and she, Root, wasn't looking for her. While the guilt and the pain and the emptiness in her heart were eating her alive. Why was she still there? The Machine was safe now, sort of. Why weren't they all out there looking for Sameen? Why were they still trying to beat Samaritan without her? Why it looked more and more like she was the only one still missing her, still thinking about her, still wanting her back?   
  
"Miss. Groves?" - Harold, on the other end of the line, turned her thoughts away - "Are you still there?"  
"Of course, Harry. May I go inside?"   
"Yes, the cameras have been turned off. You have ten minutes."  
"More than enough for me."   
With handgun loaded and silencer attached, she made her way through the front door of the hotel.   
Large, red and golden hall welcoming her, people aimlessly walking around. A little crowd to the reception, phones restlessly ringing probably because of the temporary shut down of the cameras. Windows on the wall opposite to the entrance, probable imminent presence of a sniper on one of the buildings next door. The emergency exit was downstairs.   
Root took the elevator and as soon as she arrived on the tenth floor, she carefully checked it, pulled the syringe she had prepared out of the pocket and knocked on Elizabeth Bridges' door.   
The woman opened the door with a welcoming smile only to be soon replaced by a confused expression. She was clearly expecting someone else.   
Root didn't lose any time and quickly injected the content of the syringe to the woman who lost consciousness and hit the floor.   
  
"I'm in, Harry," - she informed while looking for the woman's laptop.  
"Glad to hear that. How's miss. Bridges, miss. Groves?"  
"Lying on the floor. Sleeping,"  
Check the closet, check the bedside table, check every drawer, check the bathroom. Where on earth could she have hidden something she was just about to handle to her client?  
"Miss. Groves, could you please-"  
"I found it, Harry!" – she interjected him pulling out a silver suit case from under the bed - "I'm on my way!"  
"No, wait! Miss. Groves?"  
" _What_ is it, Harold?"   
"Could you please move miss. Bridges from the floor and gently laying her on the bed?"  
"We don't have time for this!"  
"Please, Root! Please."  
Root sighed. She quickly took the woman by the shoulders and dragged her near the bed. She left her lying with the back against the side of the bed in a sitting position. It was the best she could do, really. The woman wasn't certainly light as a feather _and_ she was running out of time. She had to move.   
  
As she exited the room the elevator was coming up from the eighth floor. She rushed for the stairs and by the time she reached the eighth floor, she found two men readily shooting at her. She took cover behind the elevator which she heard hitting the tenth floor.  
“Miss. Groves? Is everything OK?”  
“Yes Harry, I’m just having a bit of a fun. Call you later.”  
She shot a couple of times taking the two agents down. She proceeded downstairs until she reached the fifth floor and she found other two men waiting for her.  
  
“Give us the laptop and we will let you go,” - begun one of them.  
Root hinted a laugh. Since when Samaritan first asked and then shot?  
She looked at the camera on the wall; ten minutes weren’t enough for her, after all.  
“I’m giving you only one last chance; give us the case and leave.”  
Samaritan had took almost everything from her. The Machine wasn’t completely dead, yes. She and Harold could recreate Her, they could reprogram Her, make Her rise from the ashes. But the Machine almost certainly would never talk to her again. She had lost that one thing that made her feel like she had a purpuse. The one thing that made her feel confident, never alone, that taught her to be better, to value life. She had lost the one thing that made her befriend with the same group of people she more than once tried to screw. They gave her a second chance, she bounded with them and with the two only people she truly and genuinely cared about. Now, one was still constantly in Samaritan’s radar and the other Samaritan had already took away from her. No way she would give them something to make it stronger and even harder to beat.  
  
“Just shoot me already,” – she replied as she heard another man approaching from behind. Must have been the one that took the elevator before.  
He took the suit case but never lowered the gun. It looked like they were all waiting for orders. Really Samaritan now considered spearing lives?  
When the man behind her started moving past her, she shot him in the knee and lowered before the two standing before her could shoot. She shot one of them in the knee but before the other could shoot back, a bullet coming from the window pierced his head.  
Root grabbed the suit case and rushed downstairs. When she reached the hall she noticed other Samaritan agents walking through the front door. She headed for the emergency exit, avoided a couple of traffic cameras and reached a shadow zone between two buildings across the street.  
To feel the rain hitting her face again somehow relieved her.  
  
“I’ve got it, Harry,” – she informed, a little out of breath  
“Are you OK, miss. Groves?”  
“Yes. Just finished jogging. It’s good for the health, you know,” – she joked while starting to walk down the ally – “Also, tell John I appreciated his help at the last second,”

“I’m not sure to know what you’re referring to, miss. Groves,”

Root froze. Her heart beating faster than ever. The sweat on the forehead mixing with the rain.  
“Mr. Reese has been at the hospital with detective Fusco this whole time. He never left the building,” – he added.  
Root instinctively turned around and looked at one of the next door buildings of the hotel. From where she was, she could see only a very small part of it. It was only eight-stories thick, not ideal for a sniper whose target was on the tenth floor. For what she knew, _she_ could’ve shot from ten blocks away. That was also her style, after all.  
  
“Miss. Groves? Are you still there?”  
“Yes. Yes, Harold. Forget what I said, I was- I was being sarcastic. I mean, I could’ve used some help back there, but no one came. That’s what I meant,”  
“Oh! Well, I’m surely sorry for that. But Samaritan takes action on multiple fronts so we need to split up as well. In fact, I’m just about to intercept it and ruin its plans once again,”  
“Wait, Harold?! What do you mean by that?”  
“I just decoded one of Samaritan’s latest encrypted messages. It wants to eliminate the senator Garrison, for some reason. I need to take him to a safe place,”  
“No, you don’t! You stay at the Subway, I’ll go!”  
“You’re on the other side of the city, miss. Groves. Unfortunately, none of us can be in more than one place at once,”  
“Then call John, he’ll go! And Lionel can stay at the hospital!”  
“Detective Fusco alone won’t be enough. He has still to recover completely from his head injuries. We almost lost him last time,”  
  
Everything was just slipping out of her hands, more and more. She couldn’t stop the Machine from giving herself up to Samaritan, she couldn’t keep Sameen with her and now she was about to lose Harold too. Perhaps it was better when she had nothing to lose at all. When it was herself alone, obsessed with the Machine but quite unaffected by people losing their lives. Perhaps it was better when she killed for a living and when she didn’t care at all about anyone else but herself.  
“Don’t worry, miss. Groves. I’ll be fine. I’ll take the Senator to our usual safe house. I’ll meet you there as soon as possible.”  
And with that said, he ended the call.  
Root glanced up to the sky once again, raindrops watering her eyes; how badly did the Machine have to break her to make her care about people so much?  
  
~~~~~  
  
Senator Ross Garrison lived in Philadelphia, although he worked in Washington DC. It was good news because it only took a couple of hours in the car to get there and, even if only slightly, it increased the chances for Harold to reach for him before Samaritan’s agents did. What he didn’t quite understand, though, was why Samaritan would want to eliminate the one person that contributed to its rise, that provided it with the NSA feeds and agreed to make it fully operational. But then again, he was only a human being and couldn’t possibly understand a super intelligent A.I.’s plans entirely.  
He stopped a couple of blocks before the Senator’s house. It was very big and it wasn’t difficult to recognize it from afar. There were a few cameras on the street, of course. Harold took his laptop from the passengers seat and begun hacking them. He looped the street view although he knew it wouldn’t take long before Samaritan checked the codes, found out the hacking and sent one of his attack squadrons on place. He had to hurry.  
He took the teaser from the glovebox and got out of the car.  
Only when he was half away the Senator’s house he noticed that the rain had stopped falling.  
  
When the Senator opened the door his face looked everything but pleased. He was wearing a suit, probably ready to head to the Senate, waiting for his security guards to arrive and escort him.  
“You? What are you doing here? What’s your name again, uh, Harry? Arnold?”  
“Harold,” – he suggested  
“That’s right, Harold. What brings you here in my house?”  
“Mr. Senator, please, may I come in?”  
The man thought about it for a moment before he agreed.  
“So, what is this about?”  
“I’ve reason to believe that your life is in danger, Mr. Senator,” – replied Harold with a serious and concerned tone.

“And would you mind tell me _why_ you think that?”  
“Samaritan. I’ve reason to believe that it wants to assassinate you,”  
The Senator begun laughing as though what he just heard was nothing less than the end of a stupid joke.  
“Samaritan? You too with the evil A.I. conspiracy theory?”  
“ _I_ too? Why, who else has expressed this concern?”  
“That’s none of your business-”  
“Please!” – insisted Harold – “Please, tell me who else shared these beliefs with you,”  
The man took his time, again, to think about whether it was the case to trust this person he had met barely once or not.  
“It was Control. She was sure that Greer had planned a terrorist attack in Washington D.C., that there was a bomb involved and that he was using Samaritan to his own ends,”  
“And where is Control, now?”  
“I’ve no damn idea. She left the city without saying a word. She hasn’t answered my calls after our meeting that day. I went to the Department of Defense to see if she was there but turned out she didn’t show up that day, nor the following, nor the one after that. I asked around, checked at her home, looks like she took her daughter and left Washington, probably the country,”  
“And it didn’t appear odd to you, Mr. Senator? That the woman you’ve worked with for years, the same woman who wouldn’t let anything or anyone to stop her from protecting this country, who did everything always and only _for_ this country, one day just… Leaves?”  
  
Harold couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Control had finally realized what really was going on with Samaritan and Greer. How they fooled her and the Senator and everyone else, and how dangerous it was.  
The thing about Samaritan was, it would never operate only for the sake of the country, only for the sake of people. It wasn’t programmed for that, nobody had taught it that. And that was what made it so dangerous and unpredictable.  
“Of course it did! I started asking questions and-”  
“Questions?” – Harold interjected – “To whom?”  
“To some people at the Department of Defense and to Greer. I told him about Control’s suspects and how odd it seemed to me that one day she was so prone to shut down Samaritan and the other she just left,”  
Now everything made sense.  
Samaritan made Control disappear because she realized how dangerous it was and now it wanted to do the same with the Senator because he had started asking questions.  
  
“Mr. Senator, we need to leave,” – Harold stated, going for the door – “ _Now_ ,”  
“Why? Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid, here?”  
“Don’t _you_ think that Samaritan might have come to know about Control’s suspects or, even more likely, that she herself went to John Greer and asked him, probably not so kindly, to stop the operation she was sure he was involved in and that Samaritan effectively made her disappear?”  
Now, Harold thought, he had the Senator’s attention.  
“What Control was missing, though, and what you are missing too, mr. Senator, is that Greer doesn’t control Samaritan. He works for it. John Greer never wanted to control the A.I., not once, from the beginning. It’s Samaritan which is holding the reins and is playing with all of us,”  
“But it has stopped many terrorist attacks. It could’ve stopped Vigilance if-”  
“Vigilance was created by Decima itself! It was John Greer who recruited Peter Collier in the first place!”  
  
Harold took a moment to look straight into the man’s eyes. He didn’t want to scare the Senator, he didn’t want him to think that everything he’d done, in the end, had contributed to condemn the United States and the rest of the world as well. He had been manipulated and tricked by a very persuasive and convincing man and by a super intelligent all-seeing, all-hearing A.I. It wasn’t exactly his fault. However, Harold thought that they didn’t have much time left and that they had to move. Quickly. Thus, Harold thought, scaring him a little bit wouldn’t do much harm, after all.  
“Everything that’s happened in the past year and everything that will happen in the future has been and will be thanks _and_ because of Samaritan. Do you really want to put your life in the invisible hands of a super computer, Mr. Senator? Because, unlike my Machine, this one hasn’t been taught the importance and value of any human life. It’s studying us and it’s playing judge, jury and executioner without the minimum care for humans’ lives, I assure you. Therefore, please, would you trust me and come with me to somewhere safe before Samaritan and its agents reach to you?”  
But, of course, it was too late. Before the Senator could even agree, three knocks on the door suggested Harold that waiting outside there weren’t Ross Garrison’s security guards. Harold quickly asked for a second exit and they quickly headed for the back of the house, hiding outside lying against the wall. Harold hoped that by receiving no response, those agents would just come back to their car and leave, but that would’ve been so much unlike them.  
They heard the noise of breaking glass and what sounded like three men entering the house. Harold thought that was a good time to get around them and leave.

             
They started moving, quickly (for as quickly as Harold’s leg let him), when suddenly he felt someone grabbing his arm and blocking him while pulling out the gun and aiming to shoot. The Senator stopped on his feet, maybe because of the fear that paralyzed him, maybe because he didn’t want to leave Harold behind (not that he truly believed that), however with an alacrity he didn’t know to have, Harold took the teaser and used it against the man’s throat, who fell to the ground quietly. Both Harold and Senator Garrison shared a concerned look before they resumed to walk quickly. Once they were few feet away from Harold’s car, bullets started to rain on them. They got quickly in the car, the Senator in the driver seat. Harold knew that those men wouldn’t give up that easily, so he took his laptop and started hacking and turning off all the cameras within fifty yards so that Samaritan couldn’t give constant updates to them. He also sent an e-mail to Root, telling her he was coming back home safe and sound. He had to keep hacking the street cameras through the whole ride from Philadelphia to New York every 80 seconds so that Samaritan wouldn’t track him and shut down his laptop. Once they arrived to the big city, Harold gave the Senator instructions for one of the safe houses used by him and his partners.  
  
~~~~  
  
When Harold walked through the front door, Root had just finished recreating one of the too many missing pieces of the Machine and transfered one tiny part of Elizabeth Bridges’ predictive algorithm into it. John, who until that moment had kept an eye on Carl Elias while detective Lionel Fusco was taking a nap, quickly stood up and headed for the two men. He offered a seat to the Senator while he took Harold aside for a talk.  
“Are you _out_ of your mind?”  
“Fun fact, Mr. Reese, I never truly considered that. Why?”  
“You went on a mission _alone_ without even taking the phone with you?!”  
“I sent an e-mail to miss. Groves two hours ago, telling her I was coming back safely,”  
“Yes, and you’ve been lucky, Harold. Next time you might not be,”  
“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time, Mr. Reese. Now, excuse me,”  
It wasn’t like John thought he wasn’t able to take care of himself. On the contrary, until now he had done a pretty good job, having been shot only once. However, it wasn’t Harold’s ability to survive that worried him, rather their enemy’s unlimited resources and will to do anything to get what it considered needed. John knew that Harold didn’t take the phone with him because he knew that if John called and found out where he was headed, he would’ve left Elias alone at the hospital, with Fusco, and rushed to him. Which would’ve been a not so wise choice considered the attack from the Brotherhood he and Fusco had had to fend until only thirty minutes ago. Now not only Samaritan, but also the Brotherhood wanted Elias dead, convinced that Dominic’s death had been by his hands.  
  
Harold approached Elias and sat down next to him on the couch. The man looked calm, but also still in pain from the wound on his chest. And despite that, he still looked peaceful and at ease. As though it didn’t matter how many times he risked his life, he would still keep that peace of mind, willing to accept anything that could happen.  
“How are you, Mr. Elias?” – started Harold.  
The man smiled, “Never been better, my dear friend,”  
“Has the man who shot you attempted to your life again?”  
“Nah, this time it was the Brotherhood. I have many enemies, Harold, and a very few people I can still consider my friends,”  
Harold hinted a smile. He knew Elias was also talking about them. They had saved his life several times, by now, although they weren’t exactly what you would call ‘friends’. Elias methods and ideals weren’t exactly the same as Harold’s or his partners’, however letting someone die had never been an option for Harold. Even if it was the devil himself.  
Harold laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, as to reassure him that now he was safe, then he stood up and approached Root, putting his laptop on the table.  
“How is it going?”  
“Good, I think. I’ve recreated another fragment and also transferred one part of Elizabeth’s algorithm into Her, but alone I can’t possibly recreate everything,”  
“Of course you can’t, that was never the plan. You’ve done a great job so far, miss. Groves. We will keep working on it later, but now we’ve got other as much relevant issues to worry about,”  
  
Harold set down next to Root, opened his laptop and started accessing to one of the few, very small backdoor he had been able to create into one of Samaritan’s data networks. It was the one that received and sent information relating to him and his partners. If Samaritan targeted someone that had been in contact with one of them even if only once, those data stream, the orders sent to its agents would always pass through that data network as well. It wasn’t much, but at least they could keep protecting some people. People they cared about or, well, in the case of Senator Garrison, people important for the future of the country.  
However, there were certain datas, related to a certain person, that Harold hadn’t been able to find, yet. He thought that, given what had happened to the Steiner Psychiatric Institute, Sameen was now working for Samaritan. But he had been checking since the first day he opened the backdoor and nothing came up about her. As though she was actually dead, with the only difference that she wasn’t.  
  
He wanted to find her, badly. And he would’ve liked to let the others know, too. He would’ve liked to let Root know that he still cared for the other woman. That he was still looking for her. But he knew that if he shared those thoughts with Root, she would’ve started to forget about everything else and give priority only to that. Besides, he didn’t want to fool himself nor anyone else. Because if he ever found Sameen’s data into that data network and it came out that she was indeed working for Samaritan (as he already suspected), it would change nothing. Or rather, perhaps something would change: the paranoia. He would start asking himself how much information she had shared with John Greer and Samaritan. If they knew where their secret base was, if they knew where they were hiding even now. If he found her data, right now, he would only start wondering how long it would take for Samaritan agents to come through the front door and eliminate them all.  
  
“So,” – begun Senator Garrison, sitting opposite to Harold – “What is it that you’re doing, exactly?”  
“I am checking what Samaritan’s planning now,” – Harold replied.  
“And would you mind tell me how can you do that? Because, for what I can see, your Creation has returned to be a child,” – he pointed out while looking at the RAM chips in the briefcase connected to Root’s laptop.  
“I don’t think that’s wise,” – Root suggested to Harold.  
“Let’s just say that Samaritan has stolen something from me and now I’m stealing data from it through that very thing it has stolen from me in the first place,”.  
Finding data in the data network was certainly easy. The difficult part was to decipher all the information Samaritan had so meticulously encrypted. It took time and that’s exactly what they didn’t have often times.  
  
“Hey, where’s your other partner? Agent Shaw?”  
“Would you mind to just shut up?” – Root aggressively replied.  
She spoke before she even realized what she was saying. It just came out, instinctively.  
John glanced at her, knowing exactly what was going through her mind, sympathizing with her.  
  
As soon as he walked through that door, before, Root took him aside and told him of the sniper that had saved her life. The sniper she thought was him but that soon she realized it could’ve been only someone else. She told him she didn’t say a word to Harold because if she did, he would’ve quickly assumed that Sameen was working for Samaritan now. But that was exactly the thing; maybe Sameen _was_ working for Samaritan, after all.  
  
He himself didn’t know what to think, honestly. He knew everything about the events at the asylum. Root had told him that she saw Sameen walking into a SUV, escorted by some agents (another thing she didn’t share with Harold), but that she wasn’t resisting them. Harold had told him that the whole building was basically the lion’s den and that she had lured them in there. That she had told Greer and his partners about Root’s cochlear implant and everything else. And although he knew that Root would’ve never accepted it, after everything he heard he started to believe that Sameen was with the enemies too. But why shooting to one of her partners, then? Why saving Root if she was working for them, now? He couldn’t support Root’s blind judgment, but he couldn’t say he was 100% sure Sameen was their enemy now, either.  
  
“Oh dear,” – Harold spoke up with a concerned tone – “I think we have a situation,”  
“What? What’s wrong?” – asked John  
“Samaritan. From what I’m reading here, it is still after Mr. Elias but also, now that what’s left of the Brotherhood is out of control, it is also aiming to eliminate them all,”  
“How many members of the Brotherhood are still out there?” – asked Root  
“Six. Or at least that’s how many attacked me and Lionel before. I can’t possibly protect all of them all at once,” – he said while nodding in Elias direction.  
“You don’t have to. Detective Fusco can take care of one of the two targets,” – replied Harold  
“Do you really want to send Lionel to stop Samaritan from killing someone alone after what happened last time? He almost died out there, Finch,”  
“Miss. Groves can go with him,”  
“No offense, but I’d rather keep an eye on him myself,”  
“You know I don’t need a babysitter, right?” – it was Lionel who suddenly spoke up.  
  
He had been awake for a while, listening to the guys rambling about this dude whose name appeared to be Samaritan, who almost got him killed last time. He still had gotten no answers when he asked John about him, but now he thought it was the right time. Now not only they wanted to keep him in the dark, but also decide for him whether or not it was the case for him to be useful, to risk his life? He had already told them once; he was into this now. He had been into this for years and they couldn’t possibly think to cut him out without explaining him everything, first. He was tired. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.  
“So, who the hell is this Samaritan?” – he begun, standing up from the armchair he’d been resting in and approaching the table.  
“Lionel,” – once again, John tried to persuade him.  
“No, stop with that, OK? Stop with the ‘you don’t need to know now, I’ll tell you later’, because that freaking later I’m still waiting. And you know what? I’m tired of waiting. I’ve been working with you guys for more than three years. We’ve been through a lot. We’ve seen people we cared about die. We’ve lost people. So the least you can do now is to finally explain me how glasses can always know when something bad is gonna happen and who the hell is this Samaritan guy that has almost got me killed last time. And I wanna know everything _now_ ,”.  
Harold turned around and shared a significant look first with Root and then with John. Maybe it was time to explain everything to detective Fusco. He’d been loyal this whole time, after all. He’d come to their rescue and saved their lives more than once and he surely wasn’t the dirty cop he used to be. They all bonded. They were all friends now. And Fusco was part of the family. He deserved to know.  
“Miss. Groves will tell you everything on your way to the Brotherhood, detective Fusco, I promise you,”  
“Finch, I thought-”  
“I know John, but I need you with Mr. Elias. You have to take him to the airport,”  
“Wait, what?” – Elias spoke up – “I’ve been quiet this whole time, let you guys talk about your stuff and everything, but I’m still here. I’m not leaving this city,”  
“I’m afraid, Mr. Elias, that you’ll need to leave more than just the city.”

  
~~~~

 

So far everything was going as planned.  
They had to split in three groups. Root went with Fusco, she helped him to lock up what was left of the Brotherhood and to fend off some of Samaritan’s agents. She also told him everything about Samaritan and the Machine. He took it well. Well, he didn’t snap, at least. He started asking hundreds of questions to which Root really didn’t have the patience to answer. She didn’t agree to share all those information with him in the first place, so if Harold was so prone to satisfy all his curiosities, he was the one going to spend two hours talking. It wasn’t like she didn’t trust Fusco, however. She truly thought that not-knowing had been a bliss for him all this time. She thought that, sure, he risked his life a couple of times because of Samaritan, but ‘a couple’ was very far from ‘every single day at any single hour’. ‘Knowing’ had somehow condemned him. Now he wouldn’t spend a day of his life not looking around and freaking out every time he saw a camera. And he _also_ had a son. He had too much to lose and ‘knowing’ could put not only his own life more and more in danger, but also his son’s one. But then again, he wanted to know so badly and Harold had promised him so she couldn’t do otherwise. Now he knew and now she was heading to the Pentagon with him.  
  
After John had taken Elias to the airport and made sure he took the plane for Italy safely, last part of the plan was having a more than three hours and a half ride to Washington D.C. and using the Senator’s knowledge to shut down Samaritan from the control room used to acquire data. He didn’t know where it was, but he did know the code to access to Samaritan’s shut down protocol.  
He and Harold headed there earlier. Stealing a car, of course. They couldn’t possibly use the one they used to escape from those agents at the Senator’s house.  
Being there early gave Harold the opportunity to access to one computer of the Pentagon and study the layout of the whole building to find out where the control room was located.  
  
When John and the others arrived the sun had just set and Harold started explaining the plan.  
“The control room we’re headed to is at the third floor, in what’s called ‘ring A’,” – he said showing the layout to everyone else – “Labeled A through G are the concentric corridors of the Pentagon, called ‘concentric rings’. Right in between these _rings_ there are the radial corridors, numbered from 1 to 10, which extend outward from the courtyard. We enter corridor 7, walk until we’re in the courtyard, then keep moving further for one-hundred-sixty-four feet on the left until we reach the door for ring A. Once in there we reach for the stairs and the third floor. We turn right, keep walking further for eighty-two feet and there it should be; the control room. Right in front of us. Senator Garrison will let us in since his fingerprints are recorded,”  
Both Root and John seemed to have understood quite well. Fusco, on the other hand…  
“Sounds terrifying. I lost you at Lord of the Rings,”  
“Your task, detective Fusco, however will be far easier. I need you to go to the basement and reach for ring G. There will be a room on your right containing the energy panels and energetic generators of the whole structure. I need you to destroy them,” – instructed Harold  
“Wait, _what_?!”  
“In case we’ll get in trouble. We’ll keep our lines open. If Samaritan intercepts us you’ll know and we’ll need help to escape. Cut the generators and you’ll blind Samaritan.”  
So far so good, right? Get inside, reach the third floor, start the shut down protocol. It sounded definitely too easy. When John asked, Harold didn’t know how many guards were in there. He assumed many, since it was the Pentagon, but he couldn’t possibly know for sure how many at each floor. Luckily, before leaving the country, Elias had given John a little gift as token of gratitude for saving his life several times; the gun shop. Now they had enough weapons to fight a war and John was really looking forward to it.  
  
When they got inside, however, they found absolutely no one. Not even a man watching the perimeter. Corridors were desert.  
John told Fusco to be ready to cut off the generators and to run back to the car after that. He told him to wait for them for five minutes after the lights went down and to drive off if they didn’t come out in time.  
When they reached the control room, however, they found no one waiting for them. They were sure that Samaritan’s agents had took down the guards and were waiting for them at the third floor, but it really looked like there was no one there but them. Harold didn’t waste any time and started typing the code the Senator had given him, when, suddenly, a voice they knew quite too well, by now, spoke up;  
  
“Did you really believe we gave you the true code to Samaritan’s shut down protocol, Mr. Senator?” – begun Greer, entering the room from a second door on the front.  
John didn’t even have the time to take a step forward that Root literally jumped at Greer’s throat. Handgun pointed at his temple; “I am supposed to ask you what the real code is but, you know what? Let’s ask you something you’ve no reason to lie about; Where. Is. Sameen?”  
That look on her face, John thought he had never seen before. She looked desperate, tired, furious and on the edge of crying at the same time. She finally was face to face with the man who took both the Machine and Sameen away from her, and she wasn’t tied up this time. Surely, Greer was just a puppet, he only followed Samaritan’s orders, but John thought that maybe, making him pay for everything that had happened might be a good idea as well, since they couldn’t physically do the same to Samaritan.  
The man smiled; “Wise choice, miss. Groves. And to that one question you’ll find your answer. You just need to turn around,”.  
  
Before anyone could turn around, a gunshot broke in the air making Senator Garrison fall to the ground, lifeless.  
Sameen was standing in the doorway behind them. Gun pointed at them.  
When Root saw her, she felt like her heart exploding in her chest. She stood there, still with her hand at Greer’s throat and the gun at his head. But she felt breathless. Her eyes wide, her mouth open, her brain incapable of organizing any thought.  
Everyone else was having quite the same reaction. Harold was incapable of moving a muscle. Both because in his heart he hoped that Sameen had been able to escape from Samaritan and that she was working solo or maybe taking a break from everything, so seeing her there made his heart break too; and also because she had just shot Senator Garrison who was standing few inches away from him in the first place. So he was kind of scared. A lot.  
  
John himself was in a state of denial. Not as strong as Root’s, but almost. He couldn’t think about anything that made sense right now. He just wanted to get out of there and, quite honestly, never see Sameen again. He tried to move closer to Root, he was hearing Lionel in his ear telling him that he heard the shot and was about to cut off the lights. He knew that if they wanted to escape, he had to take Root by force, but Sameen didn’t seem to want to let them go in the first place;  
“Reese, don’t,” – she warned him – “Seriously guys, why can’t y’all just keep living your damn lives and, I don’t know, fucking leaving the country and minding your goddamn business?!”  
  
Root tried to speak, but before any sound could come out of her mouth, the lights went off wreaking complete havoc.  
An alarm started sounding when Reese grabbed Root by one arm while guns begun shooting on them from behind. It probably was Sameen herself. He didn’t think about it twice and shoot back. Root begun screaming Sameen’s name and resisting to John’s grip. Harold managed to reach Root’s other arm unharmed by the hail of bullets and grabbed it, helping John to drag her out of there using the door through which Greer walked in.  
As soon as they reached the corridor, John hit Root’s back of the head making her lose conscious. He carried her over his shoulder and with Harold, they rushed for the stairs, reached corridor seven and got out of the building as fast as they could. They found Lionel waiting for them in the car. As they got in, he hit the accelerator and burned rubber.  
  
~~~~

 

When the emergency lights turned on, Sameen looked at Greer who glanced at the two man lying on the floor for a moment before meeting her eyes.  
“Was that strictly necessary, miss. Shaw?” – asked the man  
“One of them mocked me, once. The other had an ass face and I like kicking ass, so…”  
“Of course,” – he conceded – “You know them very well, don’t you. They always end up doing exactly as you say,”  
Sameen felt an hint of anger hitting her but quickly pushed it away. She approached the man, a cold expression on her face; “Next time, give your men the priority to save you and not to shoot. Because, next time they try to kill them? I’m gonna shove their guns right up their ass without even having to break the deal. Understand?”  
The man smiled; “It’s not me who gives the orders anymore, miss. Shaw. Please, keep _that_ in mind.”.


	2. Pacta Sunt Servanda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root and John have finally the chance to talk to Sameen.  
> ...It's just that she can barely recognize them.

**Location** : Steiner Psychiatric Institute, N.Y. – Basement  
                Six months ago  
                Wednesday, December 9th - 12:17

 

What day was it? What month? Was she still alive? Where was she? _Who_ was she?  
Black.  
The only color she’d been able to see for she didn’t even remember how long.  
Black.  
The only color still registered in her mind.  
Cold.  
The only temperature she felt.  
Hunger, thirst, indescribable pain.  
She didn’t feel her legs anymore. Did they cut them off?  
Who cared, anyway? It wasn’t like she was going anywhere any time soon. Right?  
Blood.  
She smelled blood. Was she bleeding? Where? Her hands? They probably were her hands bleeding since the pain was stronger there.  
The pain was all over her upper body.  
Sweat.  
She smelled. She needed a shower.  
Water.  
She needed water.  
Heels.  
She heard heels. Who was it? A woman?  
  
“How is my favorite patient doing?”  
That voice.  
That’s right. Now she remembered.  
“Is the anesthetic already gone?” – asked the woman.  
Now, she was starting to feel her legs again. The word ‘pain’ wasn’t enough to give even the slightest idea, even the slightest sensation of what she was feeling right now.  
Nausea coming back to her again.  
She felt like going crazy. The agony became greater every second, every instant, every breath. She didn’t want to scream, she _really_ didn’t want to give the woman that satisfaction, but she couldn’t help it. It was the only thing that gave her the slightest, the most insignificant comfort. And _that_ was the best she could ask for at the moment.  
“So,” – said the woman – “Are you ready to talk?”  
She opened her mouth to say something, but only vomit came out of it, causing her to throw both on the floor and on herself.  
“ _Screw_ you.” – she replied in a whisper between spells of coughing and a shaking voice.  
“I think a couple of hours spent in your own vomit will help you to clear your mind. See you later, Sameen.”.  
And just as she arrived, she was gone.  
Sameen tried to free herself from the sit she had been tied to, as though she hadn’t tried it thousands of times already. She felt so much rage and anger, she thought she could explode like a bomb any time. That wouldn’t have been bad, after all. She had wished so many times to die already. Death was definitely better than that atrocious agony. Death was definitely better than sealing her friends to that bitch.  
  
**Location** : Queens, N.Y.  
                Present day  
                19:47

 

Despite they were in the middle of May, evenings in New York still felt as cold as winter. Sameen was wearing a black coat, black gloves on top of an old ruined building. She was crouched, finishing to assemble her sniper rifle while she had eyes on the target who had just arrived.  
Harper Rose.  
The woman had been getting herself in big troubles, lately. Aside from petty crimes such as dealing drugs and getting involved with some murderers she ended up covering for money, she was also responsible for letting in the country a true potential terrorist. Samaritan wasn’t the Machine, of course, it didn’t _care_ about people, about the country, but the woman was becoming quite the nuisance.  
Sameen knew that she had met the woman before. Maybe she helped her, maybe Harold did. She knew who she was, but the details? Those she really couldn’t recall.  
Yes, that was her condition now; a Transient Global Amnesia. That’s what she had diagnosed herself. Symptoms are simple; she knew who she was, she knew she was a doctor as well, she knew _things_ and she recognized people she had met even just a couple of times, but that was all. More recent events simply vanished from her memory, sometimes they lasted about thirty minutes, sometimes they were gone after sixty only seconds. When it happened, Samaritan updated her, repeating her all the necessary information each time.

“YOUR. LOCATION: QUEENS. NEW YORK. TARGET: ROSE. HARPER. TARGET. LOCATION: FIVE. HUNDRED. EIGHT. FEET. NORTH. OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE.”  
“How long have I been here?” – Sameen asked to Samaritan.  
“SEVENTEEN. MINUTES. TWENTY. THREE. SECONDS.”  
“How many times have I already asked you?”  
“TWO. TIMES.”  
“Damn it.”  
“Made a new friend?”  
Sameen turned around, but stopped before she could look at John in the eyes.  
“Yeah. But it’s not very chatty, you know,”  
“That’s how you like people after all,”  
“Yeah,” – she looked back at the rifle she had just finished assembling – “I assume that Lionel has already picked up Harper and is taking her to you guys’ safe house. Am I right?”  
“Why are you doing this, Shaw?” – the man asked, disappointment in his voice.  
Sameen scoffed, “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know?”.  
She wasn’t totally lying. She did remember about the deal she had made with Samaritan, but she wasn’t quite sure what the whole deal was about. She somehow knew it was the reason why she was working for it, but she couldn’t recall the terms. That was the thing about this amnesia she had. She remembered things, the ‘big picture’, but not the details. She somehow remembered where the safe house John and the others used to take the numbers was, but it was more like of an intuition. She didn’t remember street names, nor even in which part of the city it was, she didn’t even remember what it looked like. But she knew that as soon as she saw it, she would know.  
  
The man kept looking at her, confused. He had a thousand questions, but he knew he didn’t have the time. He had to call Harold and tell him to move to another safe place. Call Lionel and tell him not to take Harper where they used to.  
This was Sameen. She could’ve told Samaritan everything. Its agents, _her_ colleagues, could be on their way to the safe house or to The Subway in this very moment. He thought that he was supposed to kill her now, but as it had already happened years before with Kara, he just couldn’t.  
He took few steps backwards before disappearing behind the rooftop door.  
  
Sameen took a deep breath and then stood up. She started walking toward the door before she stopped, suddenly. She sighed, “Where the fuck am I again?”.

 **Location** : Steiner Psychiatric Institute, N.Y. – Basement  
                Six months ago  
                Wednesday, December 9th – 15:03  
  
“Why do you keep protecting them?!” – asked the woman while slowly pulling out one big and long niddle from Sameen’s toe – “It’s been three months by now, they’re not coming for you. Give up your hope. Tell me what I want to know and I might even kill you quickly. No more agony for you,”  
But everything Sameen could hear were her own screams and cries for that unbearable pain. The only thing she wanted to do was to free herself and kill mercilessly that bitch in front of her.  
The woman stood up and took Sameen’s face between her hands, resting her forehead against hers, “Maybe I should just take some pictures of you in this state and let your girlfriend see them. She will definitely tell me everything I need to know in order to have you back,”  
Sameen took a deep breath, “First of all, if you knew where she was, you wouldn’t be here annoying me with your clearly ineffective torture methods,” – she paused, taking another deep breath, trying to keep her voice steady – “Second, if she ever meets you again, she kills you,”.  
She thought she heard the woman smile, but she couldn’t think about it for more than one second before the torture resumed and so the agony.  
  
**Location** : Somehwere near 214 Lafayette St., N.Y.  
                Present day  
                20:43  
  
When John called more than thirty minutes ago, he only instructed to leave the house because there was Sameen after Harper.  
He didn’t mention how she was, what she said, how she _looked_. Nothing at all. So when Harold told Root that they had to leave because of Sameen, and when he didn’t mention anything else at all, she just told him to go and that she would’ve followed soon. He probably caught the lie, but it wasn’t like she cared anyway.  
As soon as he left, she called John back. She asked him what Sameen had told him, if they had talked at all. She needed to know and he owed it to her. After he had carried her away from the Pentagon against her own will. Three days had passed and she still couldn’t think about anything else but that. Surely, she had been helping Harold with recreating the Machine and whatnot, but it didn’t matter how hard she tried not to think about Sameen, because, in truth, she _wanted_ to think about her. Although she had had the chance to look at her only for a few minutes, she remembered it clearly; the tiredness in her eyes. Although she looked exactly the same as when she left, Root could feel underneath her skin that something had changed. That _they_ had changed her. And she wanted to know what was it. She wanted to know it so badly.  
  
Thus when John told her they only exchanged few words and that it looked like Sameen could barely recognize him, it didn’t take long for Root to put two and two together. Probably because of the torturing Martine had mentioned she inflicted her, probably because of the neuroimplant that they eventually must had implanted her, probably because of god only knows what else, Sameen must had lost part of her memories.  
It made perfect sense.  
The neuroimplant, that was the thing she and Harold had been fearing the most. When she and John found that girl, Delia Jones, she didn’t even know where she was or what had happened to her. Samaritan must had used the neuroimplant on Sameen and that was why she was working for it, now. She was forced to. She couldn’t come back to them because otherwise Samaritan would always know where they were and what they were planning. Sameen was its eyes and hears now, it could have access at the shadow zones too if Sameen ever recalled where those were.  
  
Now, she just wanted to see her, she just wanted to talk to her.  
Thus, when she heard someone forcing the door downstairs, she reached for her handgun and readily pointed it at the so much awaited guest.  
  
Sameen stood right in front of her, gun held between her hands.  
She looked at her, carefully. Root looked tired, her eyes watery as though she was just about to cry. She really hoped that wasn’t the case, though. She looked happy to see her, but sad at the same time. Sameen couldn’t help it but wonder if that was just the first time the two were meeting in a very long time. Her memories were just a huge mess. She recalled who Root was, she recalled they were friends, that they used to work together, but that was it. She couldn’t tell when was it the last time they saw each other nor what had happened when they did.  
  
Root felt like her whole world crushing on her for the fourth time in her whole life. The first, she remembered, it was when she was a child, when she learned that her best friend was murdered. The second, of course, was when Sameen sacrificed herself to save her and everyone else at the stock exchange. The third was actually giving up on disillusion and accepting the possibility that Sameen was dead. And the fourth was right now. Looking at the woman she… _Cared_ the most about? And seeing nothing but confusion, bewilderment and uncertainty in her eyes.  
  
Despite that, Root greeted her with a smile;  
“Hello, Sameen,”  
“Hello, Root. Could you please tell me where's Harper?”  
“How rude of you,” – she replied – “Almost ruder than the last time,”  
“I said ‘please’,”  
“I said 'almost',”  
Sameen looked at the woman, deeply. She wondered if she was bluffing or if she was being honest. When was this ‘last time’ she was talking about? What had happened? Was that a long time ago or had they met just lately? She wanted to know so badly, she wanted to remember, but she couldn’t. And anger and frustration she felt growing inside of her.  
  
Root, on the other hand, had just dropped the hook and judging by Sameen’s stare, she figured she had just taken the bait.  
“How often do you lose your memories?”  
Sameen took her time to answer. She didn’t know if it was the case. What was the point, anyway? Could she reveal that information in the first place? She knew there was a deal she must keep, but what where the terms she clearly couldn’t recall. Could she tell her? Could she not? What if she condemned her if she did? What if she condemned all her friends?  
“I don’t know if I can answer that,”  
Root looked at her, confused. Why would Samaritan keep her from telling such a thing?  
“How much do you remember of three days ago?”  
“Root, I don’t think this would be of any use. Just tell me where Harper is and let’s end this,”  
“End this?” – Root echoed – “I don’t want to end this,”.  
  
She started taking some steps toward Sameen, never lowering the gun.  
Sameen kept holding her weapon as well, her guard always up.  
Root stopped only few inches away from her. Their guns pressing against each others’ shoulders. She lowered her face, getting even closer to Sameen’s, who didn’t move a muscle. Their eyes locked.  
“I don’t want to lose you again,” – Root said on a whisper.  
Sameen smiled. That felt familiar. Unexpectedly familiar, “Have you always been this childish or have you developed this just lately?”  
Root smiled back, “About nine months ago,”  
  
Sameen could hint some kind of a reference in those words by looking at Root’s eyes. They suggested hope, expectation but also will to wait. But wait what, Sameen wondered? For her memories to come back? What if it never happened? What if she was condemned to forget every conversation, every action taken within mere few minutes? Somehow, she didn’t want to deceive her, give her false hopes. She couldn’t be trusted, she couldn’t be with her, with _them_ anymore. And the sooner Root realized that, Sameen thought, the better.

She grabbed Root’s hand and disarmed her, then seized her throat and pointed the gun at her chest, “I don’t want to hurt you, but something tells me you do enjoy this sorta things, so if you don’t tell me where Harper is, I’m not gonna hold back,”  
  
Root started breathing heavily, caressing Sameen’s hand.  
“Reminds me of the old times,”  
“Oh yeah? Too bad I _can’t_ remember!”  
She tightened the grip, but Root seemed only more and more pleased by it.  
“Come on, Root. Just Tell me-”  
“TARGET. LOCATED. ONE. HUNDRED. SIXTY. FOUR. FEET. EAST.”  
“What has it told you?” – Root asked as she felt Sameen’s grip loosening.

The woman didn’t answer. She just let go of Root’s throat and headed outside the loft.  
She followed Samaritan’s directions until she found herself face to face with John, Lionel and her target. They were walking down an ally and she was just at the end of it. When they saw her, John held out his gun while Lionel just stared at her, speechless.  
“Lionel, just turn around and walk back. _Now_ ,”  
“Reese, I don’t want to shoot you. Come on, just hand her over me,” – Sameen called out to him.  
“You know I can’t, Shaw,”  
“What has she done, again?” – Sameen whispered to herself  
“DRUG. DEALING. COVERED. MURDERER. LET. POTENTIAL. TERRORIST. IN. THE. COUNTRY.”  
“Oh, come on! Do you even know what she’s done?” – Sameen resumed talking to John - “She let one potential terrorist in the country! Why are you helping her? Aren’t you supposed to take her down?”  
“We never took down our perpetrators, Shaw. And you should know better than anyone else,” – he replied – “Hasn’t Harold taught you not to kill people randomly? You already forgot that?”  
Sameen scoffed, what a bad joke was that supposed to be. Although, she thought, what he said sounded _pretty_ familiar to her.

“Besides, that’s not the only reason I can’t hand her over you. She was working for Tornhill, you know that,”  
  
Now, Sameen thought, _now_ it was clear. He knew absolutely _nothing_ about her amnesia.  
She turned to Root, who, of course, had followed her. She was petrified.  
“TARGET: HARPER. ROSE. OBJECTIVE: ACQUIRE. NOW.”  
Suddenly, a couple of SUVs arrived. One on the back of the ally, taking John and Lionel from behind, another stopping few feet from Sameen. Armed agents approached them, picked the target up and took her to one car. Sameen looked at both John and Lionel before heading to the SUV herself. But before she got in it, Root spoke up;  
“Sameen, wait!” – she called out – “Could you do me a small favor?”  
Sameen turned around, that yes was more meaningful than any word.  
“Try to remember what happened to the stock exchange,” – she continued, with a pleading look – “And our meeting today, try not to forget that either,”  
“Those are two favors, if I can still do some math,”  
“Please,” – the woman pleaded. She had tears in her eyes, again.  
  
Sameen wanted to say something. Anything. She wanted to tell her that she would try. That she was going to do her best. But what would be the point if then she couldn’t keep her promise? She knew that kind of amnesia was temporary, but ‘temporary’ could mean both months and years. And with her kind of work? With _their_ kind of works? Both of them could’ve died any time. Thus no. No more promises she wasn’t sure she could keep. No more promises she wasn’t sure she was going to remember in the first place. She already had to keep a deal which terms she wasn’t sure to remember, so no more false hopes. No more deals. It was just her now. And Root herself had to accept that Sameen wasn’t the person she used to be. She wasn’t the person Root used to know. She was different now. A kind of different that her former friends couldn’t afford to deal with.  
“Goodbye, Root,” – she simply replied, before getting in the car and leaving.  
  
Root saw the car leaving. Tears running down her cheeks. She felt her knees weak and fell to the ground. Hands covering her eyes. Sobs echoing in the busy city of New York.  
Both Lionel and John rushed to her. They grabbed her by the arms and took her up.

“Come on, Juliet, you’ll see your- Uh- Juliet again, sooner or later,” – said Lionel  
“Lionel is right,” – John commented – “We’re gonna see her very soon,”  
“You knew about her neuroimplant, we talked about it on the phone! Why did you let Samaritan know that the girl worked for the Machine?!” – Root asked, freeing herself from John’s grip.  
“It was the only way, Root. I knew that Samaritan wouldn’t have let die someone who had been in contact with the Machine so soon. That bought us some time,”  
“They will kill her as soon as they’ll realize she knows absolutely nothing about the Machine!” – Root stated  
“I know. But Samaritan knows that we’ve been able to save part of the Machine. It’s still looking for it. I don’t know why it hasn’t taken us down yet, but I know it’ll use every asset, it’ll question every person that has been in contact with the Machine to find out where it is. And we can use Shaw to get Harper back,”  
“We _what_?!”  
“I think it’s better if you shut up for now, wonder boy. Let’s talk about this plan of yours later, shall we?” – Lionel suggested – “I’m gonna take Weeping Willow, here, to some Bar and let her have some shots. You go back to glasses or, just, do whatever. But let _this_ woman draw her sorrows.”  
And with that said, both Lionel and Root left.  
  
John stayed outside in the city for a bit longer. He thought about Sameen, how entirely crazy that whole situation was. He had no idea what to do. Rather, he _did_ know what he had to do, but he didn’t know if he would be able to do it. Sameen was dangerous. Very dangerous. Even if she probably wasn’t aware of it, she was already dividing them. For some reason, Samaritan wasn’t shooting to kill, but it knew that sending Sameen on mission would make them indecisive, unsure on what to do. Samaritan knew that they couldn’t kill her, thus it was using her to take down all its targets quite undisturbed.  
  
And then there was Root.

They were all involved. Each one of them couldn’t believe that now they had to keep their guard up against Sameen. They all didn’t want to fight her, but John, Lionel and Harold _knew_ what was the right thing to do. That they had to keep protecting people in the country from Samaritan’s lack of care for humans’ lives. But Root… It almost looked like she didn’t care about anything else but Sameen. Waiting for her at the safe house alone? What was she thinking? Did she want to end up dead? Yes, Samaritan was mysteriously spearing their lives, _for the moment_. What if it decided in that moment to tell Sameen to kill her? And what if Sameen agreed? Sameen herself had told him, on that rooftop, that she didn’t know _why_ she was working for Samaritan. She was just following some orders, blindly. How could Root still trust her? How could her _love_ be so blind?  
  
John had his thoughts turned away when he felt his phone buzzing.  
“Hello?”  
“Mr. Reese?”  
“Oh, hi Harold. Is everything OK?”  
“I was about to ask you the same thing, actually. I haven’t heard from you in more than an hour. Is miss. Harper safe?”  
John reached for a bench just outside a park. He sat down and took a deep breath, “Yeah, about that…”.  
  
~~~~  
  
Because Harper wouldn’t stop talking and insulting them, the man in the backseat had sedated her, thus she fell asleep.  
Sameen had her hands in the pockets of her coat. It was cold for being mid-May…  
Had she already thought about that?  
She took a little notebook and a pen from one of the pockets. Why was she carrying those with her? She opened it up and started flipping through the pages.

  * May 11, 2015  
Trained Claire.  
Her shooting skills have improved. Now she can hit the targets 39ft away. She still sucks at HTH combat, though. But I enjoy kicking her ass so it's definitely OK.  
She’s a little bitch and I can’t stand her.  
Remember: write this in the diary.



 

  * May 12, 2015  
I saved Root from a dickhead who tried to kill her.  
That wasn’t part of the deal.  
The deal is that I keep following Samaritan’s orders so that it won’t bother my friends.  
Keep that in mind, OK?  
Remember to write this stuff in the diary.



 

  * May 12, 2015  
I killed Senator Garrison.  
I had to in order to keep the deal.  
Oh right, the deal is that I keep doing whatever Samaritan tells me so that it won’t kill my friends. Remember this.  
By the way, I met them at the Pentagon. They looked like crap. And shocked.  
Root looked very shocked.  
Kinda hope she’s fine.  
Not that I care, anyway.  
Write this shit in the diary



Sameen started turning all the pages until she got at the first one. It was dated April 2nd.  
  
**Location** : Steiner Psychiatric Institute, N.Y. – 2nd floor  
                One month ago  
                Saturday, April 2nd - 09:06

 

“Are you ready, miss. Shaw?”  
It was Greer who spoke up, walking into her room.  
Sameen closed quickly the notebook and let it fall in a drawer, “Yeah. I was just writing some memos, you know,”  
“Of course, dear,” – Greer replied – “But we should go now,”

Two men approached her and took her by the arms. They escorted her into another room where there was a team of surgeons waiting for her around a metal slab where she lied on.  
  
“Try to relax, miss. Shaw. It’ll be over before you know it,” – Greer told her  
“Yeah, about that,” – Sameen warned him – “Don’t think that because I’m gonna have some memory issues I won’t remember the deal. If you assholes break it, I’m gonna kill every single one of you with these hands. Understood?”  
The man wore one of his usual confident smiles, “Of course. We will honour our word as long as _you_ , miss. Shaw, will honour yours,”  
“Don’t worry about that. ‘Cause as much as I want to blow up this place, there’s no way I’m gonna put their lives in danger,”  
“I thought you were incapable of caring for others,” – pointed out Greer  
Sameen smiled, “As long as they don’t become my friends. But don’t worry, that’s never gonna happen with you all,”.  
  
After the surgery was over, Sameen’s memories remained intact only for the first two hours. Then, little by little, she could literally feel her memories slowly slipping through her mind. By the end of the day she didn’t know where she was, why she was there, what had happened to her and many other important information concerning both the people who surrounded her now and the ones she was used to have around. She knew who they were, but she didn’t even remember when she met them nor how. She spent the whole day in her room, lying on the bed, trying to lock her memories somewhere in her mind, but miserably failing.  
  
When suddenly she felt something below her hand. Two notebooks. One large, the other pocket sized. When did she put them there?  
She opened both; the small one reported written only one note, the larger one pretty much summarized everything she’d been through the past two years. She spent the following couple of hours reading everything that was written in there. When she was over, she felt like she remembered almost everything, but also that soon enough all those memories were going to vanish all over again. It was like she couldn’t keep them with her. As though they were still there, in her brain, but were constantly hiding from her so that she couldn’t find them. When she read those pages it felt like they came out, like they showed to her, only to quickly say her goodbye again. It felt like she was playing hide and seek with her brain. It was exausting and pretty frustrating, she thought. Maybe sleeping was a better idea.  
  
**Location** : Henry Hudson Parkway, N.Y.  
                Present day  
                21:03

 

  * May 15, 2015  
  
I met the guys, again.  
I talked to Root. She looked like crap.  
And pretty horny.  
She asked me not to forget the conversation we had, but I’m already starting to, so I’ll try to write it down now.  
Oh, and she asked me to recall what has happened to the stock exchange.  
Guess I’ll have to check the diary for that, huh?  
For some reason… I wish I remembered everything.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Pacta Sunt Servanda" means "Agreements must be kept" in Latin. 
> 
> 2\. The torture method used by Martine consists in pushing long and big needles under someone's fingernails/toes after they've been injected with a powerful but very temporary painkiller or anesthetic. The effect would go away in some minutes and when it does, the pain will hit the victim all at once causing them great agony. 
> 
> 3\. The first note Sameen wrote in the small notebook says:  
> "OK, here’s the thing.  
> They’re gonna implant some shit in your brain. You might lose part of your memories, get amnesia, it’ll be temporary. This is part of the deal, understand?  
> The deal, in case you’ll forget that too, is that as long as you keep doing whatever that son of a A.I. bitch of Samaritan says, your friends won’t get killed.  
> Your friends  
> Just read the damn diary in the second drawer of the dresser.  
> Keep this ALWAYS with you  
> and write everything you do everyday both in here and the diary so you won't forget"
> 
> 4\. This chapter has been a bit difficult to write because at first, I wanted to write everything only from Sameen's perspective. Letting you guys understand 100% how it actually is to lose your memories constantly, whether it's every 30 mins, every 20 mins or every freaking 60 seconds. I wanted to let you guys see how uncertain Sameen thoughts were. Writing almost every sentence with a 'probably', digging deeply in her head and also writing more flashbacks. But then I realized that wasn't supposed to be how I wanted to write this story in the first place. And I mean giving the point of views of all the characters involved. Giving Root's POV, the desperate-and-quite-about-to-lose-her-mind-POV. And you'll know what I'm talking about in Chapter 4. That's gonna be intense and CRAZY AS HELL. So, anyway, hope you enjoyed this one for now. 
> 
> 5\. Has Sameen mentioned the kiss in her diary? *evil laugh*

**Author's Note:**

> YHDH are the four consonants of the western alphabetic rendering of the Hebrew word "Yehudah", the Hebrew name of Judah. I'm sure you'll catch the meaning behind the chapter title now. lol.


End file.
